Thoughts of the Bikers
by Chocolate369
Summary: A set of one-shot revolving around the biker's thoughts as they prepare to duel their targets.


A set of one-shots containing the bikers thoughts as they prepare to duel their targets.

Before we start, I want to say this set of one-shots was inspired by Kohaku no Hime's set of one-shots "Come Together", which center around the bikers and take place before, during, and after canon, and her one-shot "Pride Goeth Before the Fall" I am not copying what she wrote. I asked if she could write the biker's thoughts and squeeze them into her "Come Together" story, and she said after a while that she probably couldn't fit them, so she encouraged me to write them myself. So while these one-shots were inspired by her, I'm not copying her. Just really wanted to make that clear. Also, if people want some good stories revolving around the DOOM bikers, I'd highly recommend her stories, they're really good.

Sorry, I know that was bit long. I hope you enjoy this story. First up is Rafael, and this chapter covers his thoughts as he searches for the Pharaoh and watches him duel the Orichalcos soldier in episodes 163-164.

Disclaimer: I don't own Yugioh.

Across the Desert

The desert boasted incredible scenery from a high view. Cliffs, plateaus, canyons with and without rivers; it was a beautiful site, especially when in a helicopter which flew fast enough so a person wouldn't get bored looking at the same scenery for hours, and slow enough for the ground to not be a blur, allowing passengers to observe and enjoy the view. However, the sole occupant of the helicopter wasn't interested in viewing scenery. Rafael had a mission, a search, find and duel mission, centered on a young king who had narrowly avoided having his soul captured. Rafael intended to rectify that mistake, which was why he was piloting the helicopter towards the Pharaoh's last known location.

The tall muscular blonde would've preferred a companion with him, since he planned on ditching the helicopter to search on foot once he arrived at the crash site, and more people would allow more ground to be covered much more quickly. Unfortunately, they were all busy, so he'd have to search the desert for the Pharaoh alone. Of course, he was assuming the king had indeed left the train, but Rafael wouldn't stay near a train that had been hijacked by enemies, even if it was totaled now. So more than likely he had left the train and searched for shelter somewhere. Searching by foot was slower, but patience was a virtue, and had worked well for him in last duel with the Pharaoh. Using the helicopter wouldn't allow him to search any crevices or the woods- which Dartz had told him was a part of the topography where the train had crashed- not to mention the noise could alert the king to his presence and give him time to evade the Swordsman, and that was something Rafael had no intention of allowing. He'd search by foot and he would find him.

Getting the Pharaoh to duel him, though, could be more difficult than last time. There was no hostage now, and the Egyptian king had already lost to him once. Of course, the Pharaoh might want a rematch to avenge his defeat. But he doubted it. The Pharaoh was a lot of things, but stupid wasn't one of them. He wouldn't want to face Rafael again without time to properly prepare. The best course of action in that case was to corner him and leave him with no choice. It was the desert, with plenty of dead end paths on the cliffs, both on top of and on the sides, and on the ground there were crevices and dead end paths. He'd accomplish that part easily enough, especially if he kept note of the terrain as he searched, and if he was able to ambush his target.

With that out of the way, taking the Pharaoh's soul was the final aspect that needed to be worked out. He probably couldn't tempt the king into playing the Seal of Orichalcos again so soon after their first duel, especially since it didn't help him in the end. Even if he had more time, even after the Pharaoh recovered from his defeat, it was a difficult endeavor at best. And right now, the king would be leery about using that card again, so Rafael would have to play it himself.

The thought of it left a sour taste in the biker's mouth. Rafael was sure he could beat the Pharaoh again using it, and he knew the necessity of using the Seal to acquire souls for the Great Beast, but he hated what he sensed the Seal did to his Guardians, making them darker and giving them a more sinister presence rather than the warm and caring one he'd become accustomed to on the island or whenever he needed them, or the powerful one they presented to his opponents. He'd use it if he had to, but he didn't enjoy it.

The GPS system in the copter beeped, jolting Rafael out of his thoughts and alerting him he'd arrived at the coordinates Dartz had given him. He landed the copter behind a large rock outcropping a safe distance away from the tracks; the last thing he needed was for a second train to come by and wreck the copter. A second and more pertinent reason was that he didn't need rescuers, policeman, or investigators discovering it. Rafael didn't expect them for a while, but he knew they'd come. The bikers had rigged the train ride to make sure the Pharaoh and his friends were the only passengers on it, but it was still a commercial train, and if it never arrived at its next destination, people were going to start asking questions. Better he not leave anything suspicious out in the open, just in case, even though he was hoping to have his job done and be far away when anybody came snooping.

He called Dartz to inform him of his arrival, and the Atlantean stressed the importance of finding the Pharaoh as soon as possible, and Rafael promised to do so, though he did feel it necessary to ask for confirmation that his mission was still necessary, as it had been several hours since Dartz had sent him off, and with crashes in the wilderness, that wasn't necessarily an irrelevant space of time. Dartz assured Rafael that the king, though out of sight, was still alive.

Sliding down the cliffs with little difficulty, he landed with a thump on the train and called out, scanning the surrounding trees and rocks and double-checking that the Pharaoh was indeed gone from the train.

Not that he believed the Pharaoh would answer back if he was there, but if the king knew that Rafael was there, he might attempt to hide in the train somewhere or sneak out and try to evade him, in which case Rafael might find him much more easily. Even if the Pharaoh wasn't injured in the crash, Rafael could easily overtake the king in a footrace and make sure they dueled. And if the Pharaoh still wanted a challenge or revenge, then the king would probably answer back.

As Rafael suspected though, there was no answer, and a quick glance inside the train confirmed the Pharaoh was not inside and simply not responding due to unconscious. Had that been the case, the king would have likely drowned by now and Dartz had confirmed that the young ruler was definitely alive. The king probably wasn't too badly hurt from the crash either; Rafael had checked nearby hospital records, which Alister had hacked into earlier, before arriving at the crash site, and though there'd been one concerning the Underwood kid, there was nothing on the Pharaoh or any of his friends. Someone else had likely found the train and sent the Underwood kid to the hospital, which meant the Pharaoh had to be relatively unharmed, or else whoever had found them would likely have sent the king to the hospital too. The Pharaoh was likely fine, just somewhere else right now.

Rafael would find him though. The Pharaoh's soul would not evade him again.

* * *

After a couple hours of wandering the cliffs, backtracking when he lost the footprints, with a couple migraines and several emptied water bottles, Rafael came upon one of the strangest things he had ever seen. After finding several sets of foot prints, including those of an animal he thought might be a dog, he'd followed them, thinking that the Pharaoh, especially since one of the prints looked like it came from the type of boot the king wore. He'd accidentally taken a wrong turn on the cliffs and followed a different path. Although initially annoyed, he'd heard raised voices from the other side and decided to see if the path he was on led to towards them,and he'd found himself on a shelf overlooking a valley. He wasn't annoyed about it all though. On the contrary, he was pleased.

In the middle of that valley, the Pharaoh was kneeling near the center of looked like two circles carved and constructed of rocks. What he was doing, Rafael had no idea. Nor did he particularly care at the moment. What mattered was that he'd finally located the elusive king, and now it was finally time for said king to pay up. And since Rafael was coming from a different direction, he didn't have to get past the Pharaoh's companions- which he noticed across from him- who would've warned him of the biker's approach. He could ambush the Pharaoh without a hitch, and even if the Pharaoh tried to run, he wouldn't get far. The king's soul was a good as his.

First though, he had to contact his master. Dartz had specifically ordered Rafael to call him as soon as he located the king, as the Atlantean could get rather irritable if he couldn't keep an eye on his enemies. When the biker had asked about whoever or whatever was currently shielding the Pharaoh, Dartz had waved him off with a reply that if he knew the exact location of a person or soul, he could reestablish contact as easily as the blonde could pick up a phone.

Rafael didn't hesitate after alerting Dartz of the Pharaoh's position, barely acknowledging the "nice work, for once" compliment before leaping off his perch and sliding down the cliff, eager to confront the king and lock away his soul for good. He was in such a rush he barely acknowledged Dartz's warning; however the eerie white, strangely solid vapor that wrapped itself around him jolted him out of the tunnel vision that had practically taken him over since he's spotted the Pharaoh, and then he was all to eager to toss that stone of his if he could get whatever it was off of him.

The thunder, shaking ground, and sudden powerful presence that suddenly enveloped the valley shot goosebumps down Rafael's arms and his hair felt like it stood even straighter up before. The roars that followed shortly after had his eyes searching everywhere for the source, almost expecting a dragon to come shooting down from the sky, and he jumped slightly when he saw the ground near the Pharaoh, who was by this point standing up and on alert, cracked and erupted, spewing out purple and black and smoke. When the smoke solidified into a monster with ancient armor and an attachment on its left wrist that vaguely resembled a duel disk, Rafael hoped out loud that it was on his side.

Dartz had chuckled, and explained to Rafael what he was seeing. This soldier was one of the many the Orichalcos had granted him in his quest to rebuild the world ten thousand years. They required either a piece of the Orichalcos or the Great Beast to be summoned, and both had been rather scarce lately until Dartz had obtained the god cards and used their energy to begin the revival of the Great Beast. Many more would be summoned later to collect the souls needed the Leviathan to return. The soldiers were very efficient since they could conjure the Seal without needing a card and the sole monster they summoned, Orichalcos Gigas, was impossible to destroy. The Pharaoh would never escape.

Throughout Dartz's explanation, Rafael had also been keeping an eye on the duel, and saw the Atlantean's words proven true as Gigas took down each of the Pharaoh's monsters. Though assured the Pharaoh would lose, with no small satisfaction and sense of justice at the fact, Rafael was vaguely disappointed at the idea. Sure, Rafael was glad it was on his side, and in the long run it mattered little who- or what- captured the Pharaoh's soul, but the blonde biker would have enjoyed being the one who handed it over to Dartz. He'd heard so much from the Atlantean about how the Pharaoh had nearly destroyed Egypt, and perhaps the world using the power of the Shadow Realm. The guy needed to be locked away, and in a more secure prison where he couldn't escape—inside the Great Beast.

And he'd accomplished that task. Or he should have anyway. He felt like he'd been kicked in the chest when Dartz had told him that there were two souls in the body he had dueled and that he'd taken the wrong one. How did that even work anyway? Wouldn't both souls have been taken? Then again, most bodies only had one soul, so maybe if there were two, then the Seal could only take one. In that case, had the Pharaoh force the other boy, Yugi, to take his place? The thought made Rafael's blood boil. He didn't know much about Yugi as a person, but the idea was still revolting to think about. And the small headache he'd gotten when contemplating the concept of how two souls were in one body didn't help matters.

It did make sense though. After Dartz had sent the Raptor and Underwood kids out to duel the Pharaoh and Wheelier, he'd sat alone in headquarters and pondered Dartz's revelations, and several of Rafael's questions had been answered by them. Like how the Pharaoh had possessed a rather child-like voice when he met the guy at the game shop. Rafael had almost laughed at it and thought the Pharaoh had hardly sounded like a threat before riding to the construction site. That and his short size. When the king, with his friends, had arrived at the top of the building, the deep and commanding voice that had come from the guy's mouth had caught him off guard and he'd wondered if the guy was just good at voices and trying to sound tougher, even though it became evident later on that that was his normal voice, and he'd wondered why the Pharaoh had sounded different when he first met him. Rafael had shoved the questions to the back of his mind when he, Alister, and Valon had watched the duel, but it had remained there, even if he tried not to pay it much thought as he planned to capture the king's soul. Now it made sense; it was Yugi they'd met at the Game shop, not the Pharaoh.

A pained roar jolted Rafael out of his thoughts and he returned his attention to the duel, just in time to see the Pharaoh knocked of his feet by shockwaves from the destruction of whatever monster of his that Gigas destroyed. Watching the Pharaoh summon Obnoxious Celtic Guardian, he supposed it was all irrelevant. Yugi's soul was captured already, and the Pharaoh was about to lose the duel; one more attack would finish him off. "Let's see you get yourself out of this," he muttered. Rafael barely even acknowledged the people heading towards the king; the Seal didn't allow others to enter. Goosebumps run down his neck and spine as lightning struck the ground, but he paid it little notice as he watched the Orichalcos soldier advance on the Pharaoh.

He narrowed his eyes as the Pharaoh actually turned away from the duel at hand to look behind him. Sheer curiosity over what could actually distract the king from the duel made him look too, and though he could see little with behind the Seal with all the lightning, he did see a little girl, injured from the look of it, land near the Seal. His eyes widened as the little girl actually _reached_ _through_ the Seal and gave the Pharaoh something, what it was he couldn't see, before she vanished.

Actually penetrating the Seal was supposed to be impossible- even with an Orichalcos stone, it was difficult venture at best- and that girl hadn't used one. Who was that she?

His muscles tensed as he sensed something was about to happen; the game had changed now, even though outwardly it looked like the soldier still had the advantage. His eyes focused on Pharaoh with laser-like intensity as the younger man turned to face his adversary once again, standing much straighter and with more determination and strength than before. In his hand he held a card, which Rafael assumed the girl had given him.

Five seconds later, Rafael's jaw dropped, and his eyes nearly jumped out his sockets and fell down the cliff walls as the Pharaoh summoned Timaeus. That shouldn't have been possible! The dragon had deserted the king after he'd played the Seal, so how was he able to summon it now? Even as Rafael pondered the question and took a step backwards, he knew instinctively that the Pharaoh was about to win, and the latter didn't prove him wrong as Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight's attack enveloped the field, the sheer power of the attack causing him to step back and and shield his face as it presumably disintegrated the Orichalcos soldier and Orichalcos Gigas both.

He let a small, bitter smile as the light dimmed after Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight's attack, leaving the Pharaoh stood victorious in the fading light of the Seal, his monsters following shortly afterwards. They'd lost their chance at the Pharaoh's soul, but this was a small victory for him too. He still had the chance to make up for his failure and capture the Pharaoh personally.

"I have to say I'm glad you won Pharaoh. Now I can be the one who delivers your soul to Master Dartz."

Not today though. For whatever reason, the Pharaoh could summon Timaeus again, and that meant he was a much stronger and much more dangerous opponent. And Rafael had sensed something…different…about the king. He couldn't put his finger on it, but it was a cause for, if not concern, at least caution. There would be time to duel the Pharaoh another day. He'd return to Paradius and prepare, wait for the Pharaoh to come to them. And he would, the biker was certain of that. And when that time came, Rafael would finally capture his soul.

* * *

So, how do you think I did? Should I continue with Alister and Valon? Should I do one of Rafael just before his second duel with the Pharaoh? I'd appreciate any suggestions.

I hope you'd enjoyed it. Please review?


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